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Monday, April 30, 2012

Brian Moran, a Knoxville, Tennessee police officer wasn't working last Tuesday, so he decided to attend a City council meeting, where there was going to be a debate over adding ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity in hiring city employees.

And Moran came armed with passages from Leviticus.

Oh, no, not Those passages. Moran, who was brought up in the Baptist Church, says, “I’m here for human rights. I’ve been doing my research. And if somebody’d brought up Leviticus, I was going to hit them with these.”

He flashed a list of Bible verses enumerating human acts that are sanctioned—burning a bull on an outdoor altar as a sacrifice, selling a daughter into slavery, owning slaves as long as they’re not from neighboring states.

“But I didn’t need to do it,” he said.

And he didn't need to do it, because the Knoxville City Council voted unanimously, and without discussion, to approve that ordinance to prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity in hiring.

This means, and i quote from the article, "that the legislative body of this scruffy little burg on the reddest end of the state the punditocracy has dubbed 'Talibanessee' is halfway to adopting an anti-discrimination ordinance."

All that's left is for it to pass on second reading tomorrow.

And, as often happens, Paul Berney, one of the most active supporters of the non-discrimination ordinance is a first cousin to state Senator Stacey "Don't Say Gay" Campfield, who is notorious for his gay-bashing proposals, and his inane ramblings on the origin of AIDS: "[S]ome guy screwing a monkey."

Cousins. One smart, one Stacey Campfield.

Berney isn't sure if Campfield knows how hard he's worked for this new anti-discrimination policy and, frankly, doesn't care much: "I don’t know [what he’ll say]. My family’s Catholic, and like Stacey I have a lot of love and respect for the church … What I was taught was that the church looks at sex not between a husband and a wife as a sin. Masturbation is a sin; sex outside marriage is a sin. If we’re going to deny people privileges and rights based on homosexuality, maybe we ought to look at all that other stuff, if we’re going to legislate morality. Bottom line, I don’t think it’s for the government to decide. As a taxpayer, I want the most qualified person doing the job, period. I don’t care what they do on their own time.”

Wow. Maybe Stacey Campfield ought to spend a little more time with his relatives, and little less time worried about The Gays. He might actually learn something useful.

Way to go, Knoxville. Way to tell the rest of Tennessee that you won't play that game.

Last Monday, Alex Smith, an 18-year-old openly gay Ogden, Utah resident spoke to a community panel about the dangers of bullying. Alex talked about the bullying his own boyfriend, Jack Reese, had endured as a result of living his life as an openly gay youth.

But, what no one listening that day knew, in fact, what Alex Smith himself did not know, was that Jack Reese had decided the bullying must end, and he took his own life the previous weekend.

The death of Jack Reese is the latest known suicide of a gay teen in Northern Utah, and one official told Ogden OUTreach director Marian Edmonds, off the record: “It happens here about once a week, but officially, you know, it doesn’t happen here.”

They keep it a secret so no one knows that gay kids are being bullied to death in Utah.

OUTreach will be hosting a community panel and discussion, A Community Stands up – Northern Utah Addresses LGBT Bullying and Suicide on May 1st. The purpose of the event is for the community to stand in solidarity with queer youth, to speak out and express grief and outrage at yet another loss of life in Northern Utah, and to witness for the need for immediate change in schools, churches and society.

EricUngerwent
to a party one night and, at about 2:30 AM he decided to leave and head home.
He was walking alone when a group of men came around him from behind and one of
them knocked Eric's phone out of his hand.

As many people might do, Eric asked if they had a problem.

And, apparently, that was all it took.

Eric, who is openly gay, said they began taunting him with anti-gay slurs
and began to surround him, He told them he just wanted to go home, but the
group--five to eight men--began to beat him, and call him all sorts of
offensive names.

Eric called the police after the attack and was taken by ambulance
to AdvocateBroMennMedical Center.

Eric Unger: “I don’t know why people like that go out
to do that to people, to single someone out and attack them for no reason.”

He suffered scrapes and bruises on his face, and some of his teeth were
broken; he also had a fractured jaw. All for walking home alone, and, i guess,
for being gay.

Normal, Illinois Police Sgt. AdamKapchinskeconfirmed
that officers foundUngerafter
the beating, but say no one witnessed the attack. Eric, at that time, did not
mention that the believed the attack to be a Hate Crime because he was singled
out as a gay man.

Eric admits that he was "frazzled" after the attack--remember,
broken teeth and a fractured jaw--and may not have mentioned his belief the
attack was a hate crime in a police report.

Kapchinskesays
fightson and around theISUcampus are common on the weekends when many
students are partying and but one person being beat by such a large group is
“rare.” And he says there isnm';t enough evidence to classify it as a hate
crime.

Which leads me to wonder, as often happens, why would EricUngersay the attack was motivated by hate if it
wasn't? I mean, assuming he did not know the men who beat him, why would he say
it was hate if itALLEGEDLY wasn't? It seems to me he would
want the people responsible for the crime brought to justice, even if they just
beat him for his wallet--whichthey did not take--or his phone--which they
also did not take.

And, it seems to me, if you're beaten, for any reason--theft, marauding
brawlers, drunken college kids with nothing productive to do--you wouldn't need
to call it a hate crime. It's a crime.

But, if you are called any number of anti-gay slurs before and
during the beating, and you say the name-calling and the beating went
hand-in-hand, then that would be a Hate Crime.

Beating EricUngerfor
some misguided sense of fun, or for the purposes of robbing him is a hateful
crime.

I was with a sixth grade English class. We went to the
library. A bunch of boys were all excited about a book - well, that's good,
right. We got back to class. They placed the book in the middle of their table
(kids sat four to a table) and made sure the cover was facing the boy at the
corner of the desk. The boy was extremely overweight and the book was about the
dangers of obesity. The teacher was in charge of 25 students and had to get thru
that day's lesson and didn't see it. I did. I was able to remove the book, tell
them to grow up but the damage was done for that day.

This is driving me crazy! I thought the "don't say gay" thing was over. But
no!! Some of these hateful wingnuts elected to what once was a fairly reasonable
state legislature now want to make abortion murder. Legally murder. Yes. Just
when we think it can't get worse!

....

Oh, and you are right about what will happen now. This is giving carte blanche
to gay bashing and bullying and worse! I can't stand it. Many of us are
appalled.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Remember when Marc Anthony
and Jennifer Lopez weresooooin love? Yeah, it was just about long enough to make a
couple of babies and then it was over.

Rumors swirled that JLo was banging her
music video co-star William Levy, while rumors swirled that Marc was banging
his HawthoRNe costar Jada Pinkett-Smith, while rumors swirled that Will Smith
was banging a couple of dudes....

But I digress. Marc and JLo.

Marc Anthony has finallyfiled for divorce from Idol judge and cradle-robber Jennifer
Lopez. And now he's making like JLo was the big cheater all along. But not with
Levy. Nope, Marc is making sounds like JLo was banging her first ex-husband
Ojani Noa, and Marc's lawyers want to talk to him.

Anthony’s attorney is reaching out to Ojani
Noa as there is speculation that she was spending time with him while married
to Anthony.

A source--and, by source,
it's gotta be Miss Ryan Seacrest--says, “Marc Anthony’s lawyers are following
up with allegations that Jennifer was seeing Ojani while married to Marc,
before and after the twins were born. Jennifer allegedly would go to Ojani’s
Hancock Park house and spend time with him, without Marc’s knowledge.”

And, if that wasn't
enough, Marc Anthony is also looking for financial records of Jennifer Lopez’s
because he, and his attorney, believe that she has hidden her money in offshore
accounts shortly before the two separated.

I'm not sure about this.
JLo cheating? JLo so greedy that she would hide money? I just can't....oh, who
am I kidding. This is Typical JLo style. Screw everyone and then act all
sweetness and light.

And Ojani Noa may have
something to say about that. See, Noa isALLEGEDLYjobless, and unable to find any work because of
Jennifer Lopez: “her lawyers have threatened to sue anyone who has hired or
wants to hire Ojani, claiming that any public mention of Ojani being married to
her in any form of publicity is a violation of their marital settlement
agreement.”

Ouch. So, maybe Noa and
Anthony will team up in the Battle JLo.

After her, okay, I'll say
it,ALLEGEDassault on a woman at The Standard Hotel a few
weeks back, Lindsay Lohan is once again playing the victim. She was attacked,
dammit, because nothing she does, or nothing that ever happens to her, is her
fault. It's a conspiracy.

Nope, it sounds better
when you say it like Daffy Duck: "It'th a conthpirathy."

Some reports claimed that
Lindsay Lohan was the victim in another Standard bar brawl that left her soaked
in someone else’s cocktail. Unfortunately for the wacktress, it doesn't seem
like her version of victimization is true because the only person backing up
her story is her serial liar father, douchebag Michael Lohan.

So, with no one on her
side and no one to believe that she's a good girl who just got caught up in
drugs and booze and kidnapping and car theft and jewelry store robbery,
Lindsay has announced that she will no longer go to The Standard; because it's
the hotel';s fault she brawls there.

Yes, Lohan is “banning”
herself, except......

The folks who run The
Standard are saying that they barred Lindsay from bringing her cracked-ass
troubles into their establishment. In fact, The Standard has also barred Lohan
2.0, AKA DUI-arrestee Amanda Bynes, from the premises.

So now I’m imagining
Original Recipe Lohan and Lohan 2.0 standing outside a 7/11 drinking from
paper bags and smacking each other in the face.

Stay tuned.

America’s Next Top
Model.

Is it still on? I'm
guessing the answer is yes because ANTM headmaster Tyra Banks is peaking out
about the upcoming season and a massive revamp of the show, which has become a
parody of itself.

See, Tyra has gone ahead
and fired everyone from the show next season.

Well, everyone except
herself, I mean.

She tossed Miss J to the
curb. She took Jay Manuel, and his over-acting hands, to the side and then
crushed him. She told British judge Nigel Barker that his visa had expired.

All gone. But.....if you're trying
to fix a tired show, wouldn't you look at the one constant, season after
season, and tell that Amazon with the five-head that she was fired?

Oh, but she's the boss.
And the ego. So, she's gonna be the runway coach, the photo-shoot coordinator, the
photographer, and the judge. So she stays.

But, she might not like
what former, and also fired, judge, Janice Dickinson has to say about ANTM. Appearing
on the Derek and Romaine show on SiriusXM last week to talk about her upcoming
one-woman show atXL Nightclub in NYC, Dickinson reacted swiftly to the
news that Tyra canned her team: “She’s one selfish greedy woman....She
doesn’t have a creative bone in her body, so someone else is pulling the
strings on this one.”

She was, however, upset
about Miss J's firing, but she questioned Barker's sexually and finished up by
saying, “I don’t like any of them. Fact. And they don’t like me.”

But she wasn't finished.
At the end of her interview, she dropped one last bomb: “Okay. I’m just
going to say it. COVERGIRL chooses the model. It’s not the judges. It’s not
Tyra.”

The Five-head will not be
amused.

More on Lohan, the
cracktress.

After all the brouhaha
about Lohan's chemically altered face, and how Lifetime wasn't sure she could
pull off playing Rip Taylor, oops, I mean Liz Taylor, because Lohan could
totally do Rip Taylor, news has come that Lifetime has signed Crazy to a contract.

And Rosie O'Donnell is none too happy about it.

Rosie was on the
"Today" show with Matt Lauer and Donny Deutsch when it was announced
that Lohan will playTaylor in "Liz and
Dick" and, as Rosie is apt to do, she made her feelings known: "I feel very sorry
for her....I think she needs a lot of time away....She's had a lot of trouble
doing every single movie, including SNL. She was out and not in rehearsal.
I think she's not in a place to work."

Okay, everyone has a
right to her opinion, but then Donny Deutsch actually suggested, "She's
our generation's Elizabeth Taylor."

And Rosie lost it.

"You're out of your
mind! You're a crackhead! The last thing she did good she was
sixteen....I don't think she's right for the role and I don't think she's
capable at this point to portray that character."

Well, like I said,RipTaylor is right
up her alley.

Poor Miley Cyrus and, to some extent, Dinty, er, Demi Moore..

Miley's trying to grow up
from Disney ingenue to real life woman, and one step in that arduous process
was starring inLOLopposite Demi Moore. Miley would be Lola, who is
called Lol--yeah, that is a stretch. Demi, of course, is trying to prove she isn't a narcissistic, surgery loving, huffing, nutjob

But now comes word thatLOLwill
not be getting the red carpet treatment from Lionsgate because, theyALLEGE,they couldn’t find a place for the film in their
schedule. Or it was just too awful. I mean, Demi and Miley. That's Hollywood
for trainwreck.

Lionsgate executives lost
their enthusiasm for the picture and began focusing on several higher-profile
projects, including flops likeAbductionand the rebooted Conan the Barbarian,but now thatThe Hunger Gamesis making them all sorts of money, they don't want to
release another God-awful Miley-Demi-hot-mess movie.

Execs are spinning the story that the
weren't confident they could successfully sellLOL, which
centers on Cyrus’ character, but features a series of interwoven tales
involving teenagers, so LOLseemed destined for Direct-To-DVD hell, except.....

A clause in the contract that says itmustbe released domestically in at least 100 theaters.

Look out, Bismarck and Pocatella.
I see aLOLin your future.

Trouble is, I don't see a
film career in Miley's or Demi's.

It’s hard to break into
the upper echelon of the social scene.

If you’re a Kardashian, I
mean. It seems that Beyoncé wants nothing to do with the Kash Kow even if she’s Kanye’s latest bedtime
whorey.

The Bey-Z don’t like the
Kimye.

Seriously? A new language?

Anyway, ever since Kash
Kow hooked her large posterior to Kanye’s ego, she’s been dreaming of joining
that Beyoncé/Jay-Z inner circle.. But Beyoncéis apparently as turned off by
Kash Kow as is most of America, and she is ALLEGEDLY icing Kardashian out of
the group.

It’s high school all over
again!

But apparently it has to
do with the way they live their lives.Beyoncé's marriage to Jay-Z was
extremely private, and neither of them confirmed it until long after the event,
while Kim’s, for lack of a better word, marriage was a whore-fest media circus,
with elephants—Hi Khloe—and circus clowns—Hi Bruce—and then filmed for TV.

Now, I am not the biggest
fan ofBeyoncéand Jay-Z, who never met a market they didn’t want to tap into—do
not make me rehash the Beyonce coockbook—but I am loving the ice-out of Kimye.

Get to steppin’, whores.

And even more on Lohan.

Now, to be fair, there are
all kinds of stories out there about the wactress, and sometimes even I have a
hard time believing them. Like this one: Rumor had it that Lohan was late to
the set for the first day of her first acting job in a few years.

Late.

Now, that seemed like it
was just gossip, until…… one irate cast member, Dot Marie Jones, who plays
Coach Beiste, Tweeted: “Gonna be a long day!! Some ppl show up late and just throw a wrench in things. Not
cool!”

Jones also Tweeted [and
later deleted]. “I’d rather be an hour early (I was) than 5 minutes late.”

Trouble is, Lohan wasn’t
five minutes late—I mean, that would have given her enough time to fill her
water bottle with vodka—but was six hours late. And this was after producers
sent a car to pick her up from under a bar at the Chateau Marmont.

And then she went all diva
on the set, and demanded a large, extra pimped-out trailer for her to use on
the two days she was supposed to work.

A set insider—and I’m
guessing it’s Lea Michele, who wants to be the only diva on that set—says “She came to set with a million demands and
was not prepared to work. The cast is already worked to death and then she puts
everything behind. She is a diva!”

Yup, six hours late, she
hasn’t yet read the script, and she wants to be treated like a star! But her
lapdog, spokesmonkey, Steve Honig, spoke out, saying, “I am on the set with Lindsay right now, and
everything is going well and on schedule.”

Uh huh.

That ‘source’ also said, “Lindsay was a total nightmare. She was three
hours late in the morning, and when she did finally arrive, she just didn’t
want to be there. She did not want to work. She had not memorized her lines,
and she kept disappearing so no one could find her.”

In fact, the cast was
so displeased with Lohan they began calling her “That girl” as in That girl is
a crack head. Or That girl stole my necklace.

And with all that trouble
on the set, Honig finally had to admit Lindsay wasn’t the professional
cracktress they make her out to be. He claimed her tardiness was a
“misunderstanding” about her call time, and said all the gossip was “a classic example of people trying to bash
Lindsay. She busted her ass yesterday and is back on set again today.”